UNITED STATES COUNCIL FOR AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH LLC

2016

Team Awards

USCAR Team Awards recognize those teams and members who leveraged their resources, exceeded expectations, overcame challenges and created outstanding value for our member companies.

The Crash Safety Working Group (CSWG) extensively analyzed the scope and practicality of a research project aimed at quantifying the performance of advanced safety technologies, specifically Driver Assist Technologies (DAT). The team focused on a meta-analysis of DAT to establish the foundation for understanding the potential safety impact, and engaged the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories to further understand modeling thermal electrochemical processes under mechanical loads in coupled formulation.

Those recognized as part of the team were: Zine Ben-Aoun, Guy Nusholtz and Yibing Shi (FCA US); Saeed Barbat and Bill Stanko (Ford); Tejas Bhavsar, Raymond Kiefer, Beichen Li and JT Wang (GM); Anita Bedra (USCAR); and The National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.

The Electrical Wiring Retention Team (USCAR-44) quickly formed a functional team and wrote a validation specification for products that provide “Electrical Wiring Harness Retention,” within one-quarter of the typical time. The USCAR-44 specification was published in May. Successful testing using the USCAR-44 will reduce or eliminate warranty claims and assure retainer installation follows ergonomic best practice.

The Integrated Circuits Forum (ICF) was established as a working group in 2016. The ICF worked with Tier 1 suppliers to identify designs at-risk of separation or delamination. The team also developed a series of tests for Electrically Induced Physical Damage (EIPD) of electronic modules. By developing these field-correlated test methods to identify at-risk designs, the team estimates a 60-80 percent total reduction of EIPD.

Those recognized as part of the team were: Johnny Che and Kim Mao (FCA US); Tony Lusardi and Matthew Yager (Ford); John Mason and Joseph Ney (GM); Todd Peterson (Bosch); James Roberts (Continental); Reinhold Gaertner and Leon Masseus (Infineon); and Bob Knoell (NXP).

The U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium LLC (USABC) Test Methods and Definitions Work Group took on the challenge of updating, and in many cases fully re-writing, the entire suite of test manuals in the USABC portfolio. This past year, the final 12 were completed, resulting in manuals reflecting the combined expertise and technical excellence of the OEMs, national labs and U.S. DOE.